Cinemaah

Miss and Hit


Siddique’s Bodyguard comes with built-in advantages—the right timing for release on the Id holiday extended weekend plus Salman Khan’s lucky period. It is already a hit even before it reaches the cinemas, which makes a review more or less redundant… just for the record.  His fans right now, would go and see the film even if it were the worst film ever made.

Those expecting a Dabangg like action might be disappointed. You’d expect a lot of fighting in a film titled Bodyguard, what you get is a long and boring phone romance. Salman plays a particularly servile bodyguard called Lovely Singh, who keeps his face deadpan, bows and says lines like Yes Malik (who says Malik these days!), Yes Madam, Bodyguard reporting Madam. You’d expect he’d have some solid villains to fight against—not Mahesh Manjrekar and Aditya Panscholi!

Lovely Singh is sent to protect Divya (Kareena Kapoor) the college-going daughter of his benefactor Sartaj Rana (Raj Babbar). Sartaj had got Lovely to rescue some girls from flesh traders, so the Mhatre gang want to kidnap/kill her.  Divya is the typical preening, pouting film ‘heroine’of yore, who is studying for her MBA, but actually just waiting to get married and go to London.

In the household menagerie is Divya’s constant companion Maya (Hazel Keech) a fat servant called Tsunami Singh (Rajat Rawail) and a cook for him to flirt with.  The comedy is pathetic and not much of a relief… and relief from what? Divya pretends to be Chhaya and has a phone flirtation with Lovely to distract him.  Lovely falls in love with the girl he has never seen, and Divya falls from him too. A lot of footage is taken up by these silly conversations, and situations where he tries to meet her, and she finds ways of avoiding it. Then there’s a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai twist towards the end.

Not much fun to watch, really.  Salman does not get to do enough of his comedy and muscle flexing, and there isn’t a single Dhinka Chika kind of chartbusting song.  He sleepwalks through the film, certain that it will be a hit even if he sleeps through it—his brand equity is at an all time high.  But how long with audiences put up with bad films (like Ready and this one) just because they want to see Salman Khan?